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SCIENCE STUDIES EVENTS
SMALLER, FASTER, BETTER? THE PUBLIC GOOD AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
Ed Munn Sanchez
Department of Philosophy
University of South Carolina
March 22, 2005
Tuesday, 12:30pm-2:00pm
Sumwalt College, Room 102
Nanotechnology is presented by the NNI among others as helping achieve "the
public good". But this idea of the public good is a famously slippery
concept. Is this claim simply an empty bit of praise or is there more to
it? Whose public good are we achieving? What might we mean by the public
good? There are several options that might be intended; maximizing
preferences; some Rawlsian thin conception of goods that are necessary for
any other goods; some more substantive conception of the good; a conception
connected to goods recognized in common morality such as freedom and
economic well being; a confused mish-mash of some or all of these. Does
nanotechnology really help us achieve any of these? Some better than
others? This paper will begin to explore the possible connections between
nanotechnology and ideas of public good (or public not-so-good).
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